


Vowed

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10756836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: Perhaps, if the sister can be persuaded to hold her tongue for long enough, Narcissa will reveal something useful.But the sister does not hold her tongue, with consequences for all.





	Vowed

**Author's Note:**

> Written at an Internet cafe in Kabuki-cho on August 1, 2005, after I'd finished _The Half-Blood Prince_ , and where I proceeded to lose my hanko. The dialogue lifted directly from HBP is obviously dialogue lifted directly from HBP and I do not own it.

"I think you are the only one who can help me, I have nowhere else to turn." 

At last we come to the point. I had begun to despair of this little meeting progressing beyond a sparing match between Lestrange and myself. Yet perhaps, if the sister can be persuaded to hold her tongue for long enough, Narcissa will reveal something useful. 

I relax into my seat and prepare to listen to whatever she chooses to tell me, and nothing more. To ask, to pry, to attempt to clandestinely draw forth desired information—these are the marks of an amateur. The master spy waits, is so unconcerned about what his mark may tell him that the information is volunteered willingly. People are only all too eager to reveal their most deeply held secrets as long as one prepared to act supremely uninterested in what they mean to tell you.

"The Dark Lord has forbidden me to speak of it. He wishes none to know if the plan. It is very secret, but—”

Ah, we have come to the point indeed, and one which I have been attempting to uncover on my own these past two weeks. What does Voldemort intend? I had not hoped to come by this information so soon; Narcissa has unwittingly placed quite a valuable gift in my hands. My course of action is clear.

I quickly interrupt before she says too much. "If he has forbidden it, you ought not to speak. The Dark Lord’s word is law.”

I fall abruptly silent; apparently unconcerned but inwardly thrilled at the sudden despair firing in her eyes. Bellatrix beside her is satisfied with my answer but still only too obviously on guard for any signal of trickery on my part. Yet what she lacks the subtlety to realise is that I need not resort to magic at all to gain this information. 

I rise from my seat and stride to the window, purpose written in every line of my posture. I am so close; I cannot afford any misstep now. Patience. Finesse.

“It so happens that I know of the plan,” I lie smoothly. “I am one of the few the Dark Lord has told.” 

Narcissa is convinced, but this says little; in her present state I could convince her of anything I desired. Bellatrix is not. I pray that she does not ask me to volunteer specifics; I know none. 

But luck is still with me; she is too outraged to see through my deception. “You know about the plan? _You_ know?”

“Certainly,” I tell her, and enjoy delivering the curt dismissal. “But what help do you require, Narcissa? If you are imagining I can persuade the Dark Lord to change his mind, I am afraid there is no hope, none at all.”

 _Now tell me what it is you wish me to persuade him of!_  
        
But she does not tell me. She begins to cry. “Severus, my son, my only son.”

I long to take her by the shoulders and shake. _Yes, of_ course _it involves Draco! That you can think of nothing else has been plain from the moment you first set foot inside my house._ Even the most inept Legilimens could perceive her fears pouring off of her in waves, but I dare not attempt to read her more directly, especially not with the sister here and watching me like a hawk. Yet if I am patient enough, I may yet discover more.

For the first time I waver, wondering whether sympathy or sternness would best suit my purposes, but I have never mastered emotional manipulation, and if I am to fail tonight, it will be now.

Luckily, I am saved by the protestations of the sister, which only incite Narcissa further. I am grateful although I pretend otherwise; the less clearly Narcissa is capable of thinking, the more she will reveal to me.

I wait, hoping, _praying_ that one of them will reveal what it is Draco is meant to do, but in the end, they do not.

“That’s why he's chosen Draco, isn't it—to punish Lucius?”

“If Draco succeeds—” At what? _At what?_ “—he will be honoured above all others.”

“But he won't succeed! How can he, when the Dark Lord himself—"

She is hysterical, but not so hysterical as to be oblivious to Lestrange's reaction. She seems to return slightly to herself at her sister's cold outrage. “I only meant that nobody has yet succeeded..." 

She continues, but I have little attention to spare for her words. Nobody has yet succeeded trying to do what? Kill Potter? No, that is too obvious, and besides, Potter's torment and death is a pleasure the Dark Lord would never surrender to another. There is only one other possibility for interpretation. 

The Dark Lord has almost succeeded in destroying Potter on several occasions, and the Headmaster has always intervened at the crucial moment. Of course. It should have been obvious that after four abysmal failures he would alter his tactics. My mind begins racing through the implications; I can scarce grant any attention to responding to the respective histrionics of the sisters. 

So I must assume that Draco is meant to kill the Headmaster. Or rather, that he is meant to fail, which I know as well as Narcissa can be the only possible outcome. And yet, if the Dark Lord has decided that the Headmaster must die...

Thankfully, Narcissa throws herself upon me as I follow this line of thought through to its logical conclusion, and I can attribute the expression of shock on my face to her actions. She is desperate, pleading, blubbering, begging me to spare her son, to commit this act in his place, as her family has always depended on those beneath them to clean up any unpleasant tasks with which they find themselves saddled.

And yet, I can turn even this to my advantage. “He intends me to do it in the end, I think.” And I am more sure with each passing moment that he does. Punish the father and seal the fate of the slave in a single damning act. It is very much like him. 

My mind churns with a mixture of horror and the knowledge that I must betray _nothing_ of what I now know. My voice issues from my throat of its own accord. “In the unlikely event that Draco succeeds, I shall be able to remain at Hogwarts a little longer...” knowing all the while that the Dark Lord does not intend for me to remain at Hogwarts at all.

I must remain calm. I must give away nothing, especially not now. My most cleverly laid plans of action will be rendered useless if either sister reveals to the Dark Master that I have pretended to know of his intentions when I do not. Before I can begin to scheme my way out of this, I must calm Narcissa, and bind both her and Lestrange to me in such a way that they will never speak of this evening's events to the Dark Lord.

I shove a glass of wine into Narcissa's hands with an attempt at reassurance. It is apparently effective. Obediently, she drinks. 

“It might be possible for me to help Draco.”

But how? What can I possibly suggest to her? I must think of something; it is vital that I buy enough time to make my way back to Hogwarts and see the Headmaster. Together, we can determine what future role I will play in light of what I am meant to do. 

She is on her knees before me, craven, groveling. The spectacle she presents is so disgusting that the words do not at first register.

Unbreakable Vow.

Panic flares in the pit of my stomach; I quell it ruthlessly. She is distraught, and I must persuade her away from this line of thinking into quieter waters. But with what? Her words have unnerved me, and while I am still trying to find a glib reassurance to offer her, Bellatrix, damn her to hell, forces my hand.

He'll try to slither out of it. On the Dark Lord's orders, of course.

Narcissa is suddenly very still. As distraught as ever, but now so very dangerously rational.

I have two choices. There is no time for second guessing.

“Certainly, Narcissa, I shall consent to make the Unbreakable Vow.” And I will have the bitch Lestrange as my Bonder, so that she may no longer go carrying tales of this night's work back to her master.

I tell myself I will not fear. I will not panic. With forethought and time this too may be undone. But it is harder to believe with each strand of light that spills from Bellatrix's wand and laces itself into my very being. 

The sisters depart soon after. I wait another hour; feigning interest in the grimorie on my lap until Pettigrew drinks himself into unconsciousness. Then I throw a cloak over my shoulders and depart. 

I am, sickeningly, almost gleeful as I make my way to the Headmaster's quarters. Yes, I am Severus Snape, your faithful servant as ever, and look what it has cost me. Perhaps, in working to undo this little folly, as the Headmaster must surely do, he will come to appreciate the weight of the burden under which I labour, a burden he can not possibly comprehend locked away in the safety of Hogwarts as he is.

“Ah, Severus, come in.” His back to me, he is hunched over a low table of antiquated instruments. “I was just fine tuning this two-way seer. Do sit down.” A hand—his good one— is waved absently in my direction.

I sit.

It is several minutes before he calibrates the instrument to his satisfaction. I wait. I have become very good at it these past few months. 

“Ah! There we are.” His hands shake slightly. I notice the sleeves of his gaudy robe have become tighter, less showy. He does not attempt to hide his injury, but neither does he flaunt it. My hand travels involuntarily to my own arm, wrapped in its cocoon of dark cloth. It has been decades since the skin of my own limbs has seen natural light.

The Headmaster seats himself across from me and leans back into the chair. His eyelids flutter briefly behind the spectacles, and for the briefest of moments he looks as tired as I feel. I do not appreciate it. I begrudge him his leisurely, safe existence in this school, and yet I also begrudge him any display of vulnerability, however weak. He is, and has been these many years, the only existence standing between me and the Dark. I cannot afford for him to show me weakness.

“Now,” he says, lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes, lines like those starting to appear in the corners of my own, although his are from laughter; mine are not. “You had planned to spend the summer holidays at your residence, and as I have convened no meeting of the Order, I must imagine that some extraordinary circumstance has brought you here.”

My mouth tightens, the corners drawing into a smile which cannot but look as ugly as I feel. If he only knew.

I do not waste time on preamble. “Voldemort has ordered Draco Malfoy to murder you. I have sworn an Unbreakable Vow to protect him.”

He sighs and leans back into his chair. The eyelids flutter eloquently. “This is very serious indeed,” he says. 

“A fact of which,” I pause significantly, “I am well aware.” Maddening, the way he always denies me the catharsis of his anger.

He stands and strides to the window, parts the curtains and peers out over the moonlight grounds.

“Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

There is a loud hiss from somewhere in the room. It is a moment before I realise it is my own breath, being drawn through tightly clenched teeth. “You might wish to start with how you mean to break this damnable Vow.”

“Severus, you know as well as I that nothing can break it, once sworn.”

“But it means your death!”

He smiles. He actually _smiles._ “Given our current circumstances, I believe I have as much cause to appreciate that fact as do you."

No, no. This is all wrong. This is not how this interview is meant to progress. Sweat rises from expanded pores to grease the skin of my palms. For the first time I begin to truly panic. “But Headmaster, surely you cannot mean to allow—” I trail off.

“Allow you to die rather than fulfil the Vow? No, Severus, of course I do not.”

“That is not what I meant," I manage from behind tightly clenched teeth. My lips must have gone white; I can barely feel them.

Again, he smiles; the patient, forgiving smile. And it is genuine. How, how in the name of God, can he smile now? “Yes, I know that that is not what you meant. But the fact remains that, now the Vow has been sworn, one or the other of us must die.”

“Surely there is some other way around—"

Again my words trail away to nothing at the look in his eyes. “Severus,” he says again, and I wish more than anything that he would _cease using my name,_ “Please believe me, I harbour no ill will towards you for what has been done. You would not have made the Vow had their been any way to avoid swearing it.”

No. No, no, no, no, and _no!_ I made the Vow _because_ if there is anyone in this world who can circumvent it, it is you.

“But I cannot circumvent it,” he says. I gasp. 

“Yes,” he continues. “I am sure you are as distraught by this turn of events as am I, but you must not let your emotions cloud your ability to Occulmens. And your mind in its present condition has been an open book to me since you first set foot in this room.” As if he were I, uselessly instructing the brat Potter to keep his emotions hidden. 

“How dare you lecture me on the necessity of concealing my thoughts,” I whisper. “You, who sent me—”

He holds up a hand—the unspoiled one—for my silence. “Severus, please do try to calm yourself. You will be of no help to anyone in your current frantic condi—”

 _“I am NOT FRANTIC!”_

My spit glistens on the burnished wood of his desk.

It is a long while before he speaks again. “Please believe me when I say that were it in my power to undo this Vow, I would. I wish there were a way—for your sake even moreso than my own—but there is not. We can both waste as much time as we please wishing that things were otherwise. But nevertheless, they are not. The Vow is made and it must progress to its logical conclusion. We can therefore assume with certainty that the hour of my death will come at your hand. 

"Don't look so horrified, Severus. Life is unpredictable, and that hour may not come any time soon.” 

It is scant comfort.


End file.
